Johnny Depp libel trial: Inside the Hollywood drama showing at the High Court

Hollywood arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday.

The showdown has been split across no fewer than five rooms to cater for legal teams, A-list entourages and watching global media. Johnny Depp gave evidence from Courtroom 13 to a handful of leading lawyers and the judge, while his ex-wife Amber Heard — The Sun’s star witness who will give evidence against Depp — looked down on him from the public gallery above. A system of cameras beamed proceedings live to the other rooms around the sprawling estate.

So what have we learned so far? In his evidence, a softly spoken Depp has insisted he is a Southern Gentleman who lives by a strong moral code, while divulging details of his struggle with alcohol and substance abuse.

Others believe the star is a monster lifted from the pages of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas who cannot control his “Jekyll and Hyde” personality.

Kentucky-born Depp said he would never hit a woman because of the moral code that was instilled in him growing up in Southern towns in America. “You would be a Southern gentleman — or it would be beaten into you,” he told the court in his trademark drawl, explaining his principles of “integrity, dignity, honesty, and respect for women”.

Depp never raised his voice or allowed himself to be drawn into arguments over the lurid allegations against him. While the microphones picked up his deep tones for those watching on the screens, he was sometimes too quiet for the courtroom. “Your voice is dropping, I just have to remind you to keep your voice nice and loud,” Mr Justice Nicol told Depp.

The actor has been keen to respect the decorum of the court, addressing lawyers as “sir” and “ma’am” and correcting himself when he called the judge “sir” instead of “your lordship”.

When he made a slip-up in his evidence, Depp was adamant he must apologise: “My apologies for misrepresenting a situation,” he pleaded. “Pardon me and my apologies.”

Best supporting actor Depp’s supporting act is his celebrity barrister David Sherborne, a man not unaccustomed to the limelight. He is said to have Hugh Grant and Harry Styles on speed dial and his back catalogue of clients includes Princess Diana, Sir Paul McCartney and Sienna Miller. He is representing the Duchess of Sussex in her own High Court action against the Mail on Sunday, probably next year.

So far Sherborne has been able to make only minor interjections, challenging the odd question from Wass, and in one memorable intervention debating whether an 18-second clip of grunts and groans — said to be of Depp writhing around in pain on the floor of a private jet after a cocaine and booze binge — needed a transcript. Also on Depp’s star-studded cast list are his ex-partners, singer and actress Vanessa Paradis and Stranger Things star Winona Ryder, who will be beamed into court via videolink next week.

Depp’s opponent in this particular drama was Sasha Wass QC, The Sun’s barrister, who came armed with videos, recordings, newspapers clippings, and testimony intended to damn the Hollywood star. One of Britain’s top lawyers who prosecuted serial killer Rosemary West and disgraced TV presenter Rolf Harris, she has delivered rapid-fire questions in clipped tones.

Depp maintained an air of civility, offering a “bless you” when she succumbed to a sneeze and enquiring: “Are you all right?” when the lawyer’s flow was broken by a dry throat and a bout of coughing.

Their battle was not without its moments of tension: as Wass put forward the worst allegations — from grabbing Heard around the throat and headbutting her to breaking her nose — Depp pulled off his glasses, swept back his hair, and leant over the side of the witness box to answer “no ma’am” to each claim.

The actor’s memorable boast of taking all known drugs by the age of 14 was played back to him and he corrected the record — he’s never tried ketamine.

Depp said he was only ever addicted to one drug — Roxicodone or Roxy’s — and gave a graphic account of the “hell” he had endured trying to wean himself off it.

In an unsent email, Heard said she had witnessed Depp urinating and soiling himself during binges, passing out on the floor, and struggling to remember “blackout” periods of an evening.

Depp insists her accounts are lies, but confronted some incidents head-on, saying he was “not ashamed” of a notorious appearance at a Hollywood awards ceremony when high on drugs. In a message to his friend, the actor Paul Bettany, Depp laid out his consumption of whisky, vodka, champagne, pills, and “powder” before a flight that is said to have ended in him passing out in the toilet, telling the court: “It sounds like a very self-destructive moment.”

Depp has well-documented incidents of violence in his past, but he insisted these can all be explained. “Violence is not something I go looking for.”

“There’s a point where if a man is attacking you or if a man puts his hands on you in an aggressive manner, the only thing I know to do is get myself out of that corner,” he said.

Before the questions moved on, Depp urgently added: “These are situations with grown men that really should have known better than to put their hands on another grown man.”

In one of the more bizarre moments, Depp admitted joking about putting Heard’s dog in a microwave.

The star also revealed he has carried around “a lot of pain from youth and the way I was raised”, resolving with Paradis that their children Lily-Rose and Jack would be “never spanked, never hit or exposed to violence”.

He talked at length at his struggles dealing with sudden fame and “notoriety”. “I went from not being able to pay the rent to suddenly having the job, and the next thing I go to restaurants and people are staring and pointing”, Depp explained. “I wasn’t quite used to it and I never got quite used to it.” He added: “You have become a product, your name no longer sounds the way it did when you were growing up. The sound of my own name, even when I speak my own name, sounds foreign to me.”

The leading lady in this drama is Heard, Depp’s co-star on The Rum Diary, lover, confidante, wife — and now accuser. As Heard looked down from the gallery above, Depp was forced to pick over intimate and personal texts from their volatile marriage. According to the messages, she was Slim to his Steve in their relationship, inspired by the characters of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the 1944 classic film To Have and Have Not.

From next Friday, Heard will go face-to-face with Sherborne over claims she is a sociopath, a liar, and the orchestrator of a #MeToo hoax. She arrived at court hand-in-hand with her female entourage, including sister Whitney, girlfriend Bianca Butti and the human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, a part of Julian Assange’s legal team who was once caught in clinch with Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor Seumas Milne.

Serious allegations of drug abuse and domestic violence are centre-stage in this drama — Depp daubing the house with graffiti using his bloodied severed fingertip; his description of wading through the “hell” of rehab on his private island; claims of swallowing handfuls of pills during blazing rows.

But the case has not been without lighter moments. When Ms Wass suggested ecstasy pills sometimes come with smiling faces and can be dubbed “happy pills”, Depp playfully suggested: “I can see you are more familiar with it than I am.”

The star’s penchant for toilet humour regularly came to the fore as he shared recollections of the effects of his drug and drink hazes: “I’ve never passed out on the toilet, I’ve fallen asleep — not in the middle of relieving one’s self — but sitting on the toilet leaning against the wall or sleeping on the floor.”

Depp passed off a $10,000 bill for trashing a hotel room as “a few dents”, and he let out a smile as he struggled to explain to Ms Wass the “lark” of sucking in pure oxygen on a private jet.

Occasionally the mundanity of court life punctured the Hollywood drama — Depp’s evidence was interrupted by a booming announcement that part of the High Court was being evacuated, causing the judge to reassure him that they needn’t flee. Later wrestling with a ringbinder, Depp muttered: “Might need a locksmith to get this open.”

For now, though, the Hollywood icon has departed the stage.

Depp’s black suit and tie with a dapper white handkerchief in his breast pocket for his fourth day in the witness box on Friday would not have been out of place for a funeral. Perhaps appropriately as he talked through the death of his marriage.

He was asked to revisit one of the darkest period of his life, when in 2016 his union to Heard finally crumbled, his mother passed away, and he also discovered that his finances were in a parlous state.

Depp’s messages to Heard as their marriage ended were at first loving, telling her: “All my love and my regrets, I wish you nothing but good, Johnny.”

Depp told the court: “That is what I felt, I didn’t think there needed to be any poison at that time, because that part was over, the relationship now we just had to finish it.”

The star said they were still in touch but their relationship was “virtually non-existent”. When his mother slipped into a coma in May 2016, Depp told Heard: “The end is nigh, spoken words of love and respect for you and then some, she is ready to split.”

However it was not long before the love was replace with bitterness and name-calling, as Depp demanded that Heard be removed from the Aquaman sequel and in a memorably grisly rant dubbed her a “50 cent stripper” and a “gold digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market”.

Wass asked Depp if, during this difficult period in his life, he has “numbed the pain with the usual methods” – referring to drink and drugs.

“No ma’am”, Depp replied after a short pause to collect his thoughts. “There was quite a lot going on, aside from the fact that I was in a very bad financial state as my business managers and lawyer had conspiracy to steal a lot of money, my mother was in a coma, she passed away, Amber and I were on the outs – it was looking like forever on the outs.

“I tried to maintain a good relationship with Ms Heard, a friendly relationship.

“There was so much to deal with of such a profoundly important and sensitive level, I couldn’t escape into a drug induced pain-free state.

“I had too much to deal with, and had to be on the ball….pardon the expression.”

Depp regularly excuses himself when turning to colloquial turns of phrase in his evidence: “I was very upset at being treated yet again as the - pardon the expression - turd in the punch bowl”, he told the court, describing a bust-up with Heard.

Depp memorably referred to a “mystery grumpy” in one of the more surreal High Court moments for the ages, as the Hollywood movie star described finding faeces in his bed and blamed Heard for the unwelcome deposit.

“Ms Heard was very much looking forward to clearing that matter up”, said Depp, not noticing the accidental euphemism. She was saying “it was the dogs who had done it” but Depp was adamant that was impossible.

“Someone had defecated on the bed”, he said, in one of his more animated moments. “A human being had defecated on the bed. That was the question.”

Depp’s sniffle made a reappearance as he near the end of the day, pulling off his glasses and for the first time appearing to tire slightly after four days of intense questioning.

Asked to go over his detox trip to his Bahamas private island, Depp treaded slowly through his answer: “The plan was not to bring Ms Heard because of potentially”, he said, pausing to let out an audible sigh, “potentially problems we could have, doing great damage to the process of unleashing the drug from my body.”

However Depp soon returned to his rockstar humour, revealing his penchant for sleeping wherever he found himself.

“I’ve slept on many bathroom floors,” he said. “In fact I prefer to sleep on couches myself.” Does he sometimes sleep on the floor? “Yes, I do.”

Depp’s time in the witness box has been littered lurid allegations of drug abuse of violence, the mundanity of celebrity party invites: “Bring some food, booze, and drug of choice….yay”, and his recollection of run-ins with the “snotty” English media.

He also revealed this afternoon how he been roped into a cameo in the critically-panned London Fields film at the last minute by Heard, when the original actor failed to deliver.

“Ms Heard presented to me that the actor who was to play the role had not shown up for work that day, he was apparently quite inebriated, he was unable to work so they needed someone to do the part.

“She spoke to me about it, I agreed I could do it in a day, send me the pages, and I thought I could help out.”

Asked by Sherborne if he had featured in a number of scenes, Depp looked ruefully and said: “Yes, more than I imagined.”